Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to entrances for buildings and more particularly, entrances used in commercial and industrial buildings wherein it is desirable to provide a secure entrance system, yet at the same time, provide an emergency exit for evacuation of persons from the building even though the entrance has been closed and locked for the night or weekend.
Many building codes require that the entrances of commercial and industrial buildings or public buildings generally be provided with panic devices for allowing emergency exit from the building even though the doors have been locked, closed and secured for the night or weekend.
A common type of panic actuating device includes a U-bar pivotally mounted on the inside face of a door with a cross-memeber which may be pressed inwardly toward the door face release and unlatch the door to pivot outwardly to afford an emergency exit for persons within the building. U.S. Pat. No. 2,910,857 discloses an emergency exit lock of this type.
More recently, a panic device has been developed with a relatively large panel actuator mounted at mid-level on the inside face of the door in place of the more conventional U-bar actuator and one such panic device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,225,163.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,888,046 discloses an entrance having a pair of doors with a rectractable astragal on one door operatively interconnected with a panic actuator so as to retract the astragal from interfering with the adjacent door when the panic device is actuated, thus permitting the door to swing open for emergency exit.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,204,369 discloses an entrance system having an automatic astragal and panic device on one door and the astragal is interconnected to actuate upper and lower latches engageable with the sill and head of the fixed door frame.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,283,882 discloses a safety flush bolt entrance door sytem having a latch engageable between a pair of doors to lock the doors together in a closed position.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a new and improved entrance for buildings having a need for a panic device providing emergency exit capability and more particularly, an entrance of the type described having a latch for interconnecting the doors for preventing displacement of the stiles to avoid permitting access to the panic device by an implement inserted from the outside between the stiles.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an entrance system for public, industrial and commercial buildings and the like equipped with panic devices for emergency opening of the entrance doors wherein the doors in a common frame are latched with a security latch, extended between adjacent door stiles for preventing unauthorized displacement or deformation of the door stiles with burglar tools and the like.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide a new and improved entrance for buildings the character described wherein first and second doors are mounted in a common frame with a panic device on at least one of the doors and a retractable latch extendable between adjacent stiles of the doors and operatively interconnected with the panic device for retraction of the latch when the panic device is actuated to open a door.